I’m going to buck the trend and not name names on my post for Ada Lovelace Day 2009. Instead I want to salute the women of the Ubuntu Women project for making participating in Ubuntu and in Open Source software in general just a little more supportive, friendly, and welcoming. Unless one comes into our spaces to troll or harass, in which case the banhammers are swiftly dealt 🙂
Over the years (and it’s been years now!) I’ve hung out in #ubuntu-women on freenode, participated in the mailing list, and run into U-W participants at conferences around the world. Through this, I’ve gained an invaluable support network, a place to vent to my peers, a great group of male allies (by which I mean guys who support the U-W project), and a bunch of fantastic friends.
Ada Lovelace Day is all about role models, and I couldn’t ask for a better bunch of women to look up to than the ones I hang out with every day in #ubuntu-women. Thanks for all the great conversations, and let’s keep working hard on bug number 1!
I would be remiss to not mention my friend Behdad Esfahbod’s post for ALD, because he picked me to write about. I’m delighted and honoured that he wrote about me. ETA: looks like Joey DeVilla and Karen Fung did too!
-Leigh
hypatia dot ca 
Me too. 🙂